an odd little intersection of personal history

Seaman & Cumming
Originally uploaded by Zuzu*Petals

I just received a very interesting e-mail from my aunt. She'd been looking at some photographs I'd taken of my neighborhood in northern Manhattan:

I wanted to share with you about the street corner "Seaman and Cumming." It's pretty funny but what's even funnier is that I bet the Seaman was one of our ancestors. Captain John Seaman was born in Essex, England in 1611 and died in Hempstead, NY in 1694.

From the bit of history I could find on the Seaman Avenue namesake, Capt. Seaman himself (especially interesting to me is the section regarding his will) and this fascinating piece I discovered on local blog myinwood.net, it would seem that Seaman Avenue was indeed named for this particular branch of my family.

So what does all of this mean? Well, to start, the Seaman family once had a nice piece of property in Inwood. The entrance arch to the estate remains on northern Broadway. I'd like this crap removed from in front of it, please.


We can discuss my establishing world dictatorship later.